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I quite agree with Margaret.  There was a time when doctors depended on
their innate intelligence and diagnostic abilities, whereby they took a
cluster of synptoms, the patients experiences,  their own experience, put
it together and arrived at a conclusion.  Today, if without the laboratory,
many would be hard pressed to make a decision.  My motto is if you find a
doctor who actually listens and talks to you hang on to him for dear life,
This breed,  operating independent of lab tests,   which they use  to
confirm their diagnoses,  are fading fast.  Many use the shotgun approach
ordering lots of tests and supposedly rule  out diseases. In that case
unfortunately those who react a little differently get lost And Lord knows
we all have different symptoms!

  As seen on this listserv  there is  more than one form of this disease,
probably determined by which genetic markers are involved in what
combination.  Anyone who consistently reads the posts probably knows more
than most of the docs. My doc suggested I bring him whatever I found  on
the internet that I felt was relevent  and he woud read it to help
understand this disease.  A rare truthful doc without an ego problem.

Thanks......JD